David Little: Tragedy was sadly inevitable

People — lots of them — have been saying for years that it's only a matter of time before somebody dies on the Labor Day float on the Sacramento River.

The inevitable happened this year, and now many are rightfully wondering why authorities allow the floating bacchanal to continue without restrictions.

Lord knows people have tried.

Almost two years ago, a remarkable meeting was held in Chico. Chico Police Chief Mike Maloney took a lead role and gathered a room full of dozens of important leaders in Butte and Glenn counties, everybody from district attorneys to sheriffs to city and county officials to student leaders to nonprofit groups.

The problem with the river float was that nobody was in charge of the event. It crossed dozens of jurisdictions, and everybody was afraid to step on somebody else's toes.

Maloney was careful. He started by apologizing to anybody who felt offended by Chico officers trying to take the lead in taming the event years before. He tiptoed, made sure everybody felt involved and tried to build consensus that something needed to be done.

Nobody in the room spoke a discouraging word. All seemed on board with the idea of trying to get legislation passed to allow a three-day alcohol ban on the river that weekend. People could still float, of course, but young adults from colleges all over the state wouldn't be inclined to show up if the party was quashed.

Assemblyman Dan Logue carried the bill and it passed the Legislature. It also passed the Board of Supervisors in Butte County on a 5-0 vote. But in Glenn County, it failed on a 3-2 vote, one vote short of the four-fifths needed because it was a last-minute "emergency" measure.

That was more than a year ago. The supervisors said they would revisit it before the 2012 float. They never did, and a 20-year-old tuber from Cal Poly disappeared. Brett Olson's body was found a week later, last Sunday.

Maloney, now retired, followed the search with dread through news reports and social media.

"I could not bring myself to go," Maloney told me on Friday over breakfast. "I was literally sick when I found out he was missing. When I got the tweet that his body was found, the wind was taken out of me."

Maloney shuddered. He knew it was preventable.

"For years, we would always say somebody is going to die — and then you'd clench your teeth and hope it wouldn't happen," Maloney said.

It did. Will the Glenn County supervisors now do what they should have done?

Amazingly, it's no certainty.

We tried to contact Steve Soeth, the chairman of the board, all week. He was one of two votes against the alcohol ban last year. He didn't return phone calls. The other person who voted against it, Dwight Foltz, made it very clear he wouldn't be changing his vote.

Foltz sounded agitated when we talked Wednesday. Maybe he had been asked the question too many times.

"So should we just cancel alcohol in California?" he asked.

I said I was just asking about that one section of the river, on one weekend.

"The kid was 20 years old, so he was drinking illegally. There's a law against that. It didn't stop him, did it?" said Foltz.

"I think we have too many laws already," he went on. "I think people have a right to enjoy life. The Constitution gives us the right to pursue our happiness. ... People have to take responsibility for themselves at some point. The government should not be responsible for every moment that you breathe."

Fortunately, Glenn County supervisors don't need the votes of Foltz or Soeth to pass an alcohol ban. Now that it's no longer an emergency measure, all it takes is a 3-2 vote.

Supervisor Leigh McDaniel, whose district includes the riverfront, said he hopes the measure comes back to the board for more public input and a vote.

"I know the majority of my constituents are disillusioned — and that's a light word — that people from outside the area feel they have the right to come here and leave public and personal property a wreck and destroy the river," he said.

And that doesn't even begin to take into account the personal toll of telling a mother, a father, and thousands of despondent friends that a young man's body was found floating downstream a week later.

The tragedy was so preventable. Glenn County cannot let it happen again. One time was once too many.

David Little is editor of the Enterprise-Record and Oroville Mercury-Register. His column appears each Sunday.